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BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Pauwstraat, Utrecht, Netherlands

 Educational platform

21 October 2014–30 May 2015

BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht  

New World Academy #5: Stateless Democracy

New World Academy #5: Stateless Democracy unfolds as a nomadic learning platform over an extended period of time. Its inaugural session takes place on Tuesday, 21 October 2014, at 19.30 hrs in the form of a conference titled Stateless Democracy: The Revolution in Rojava Kurdistan at De Balie, Amsterdam.

The fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has often been portrayed as a fight between the West and its Arab allies against Islamic ultra-fundamentalists. Over the last several years, however, a progressive Kurdish-led resistance has been forming in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) amidst the Syrian Civil War. The resistance has successfully implemented new models of grassroots democracy, gender equality, and sustainable ecology—its members practicing a political project they refer to as Democratic Confederalism. Women and men stand side-by-side in its armed forces in the face of both ISIS and the Bashar al-Assad regime. Despite the resistance’s efforts, Rojava is currently threatened by a massacre, and the international community continues to stand by silently as tragedy unfolds.

New World Academy (NWA) is an educational platform that invites stateless political organizations to exchange with artists and students on the role of art and culture in political struggle. It is established by artist Jonas Staal in collaboration with BAK and functions as a department of the New World Summit, an artistic and political organization dedicated to developing parliaments for organizations banned from democracy. This fifth session of NWA, titled Stateless Democracy, is brought to life with the Kurdish Women’s Movement. Unlike the previous four sessions, NWA #5 is envisioned as a nomadic platform that unfolds over an extended period of time and is realized in collaboration with various individual and institutional partners in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and internationally.

Program

education program
21.10.2014
New World Academy #5: Stateless Democracy: The Revolution in Rojava Kurdistan

book launch
30.05.2015, 20.30 hrs
New World Academy Reader #5: Stateless Democracy

congress
15.–16.10.2015
New World Summit, Rojava

education program
12.–15.01.2016
New World Academy #5: Stateless Democracy

In collaboration with

Suggestions from the archive

Sint Maarten Parade

22 October–10 November 2023

BAK at the Sint Maarten Parade 2023

For Sint Maarten Parade 2023, Tools for Action—a non-profit organization that develops artistic interventions for political actions—collaborates with Utrecht-based members of Filipino, Caribbean, and other communities to collectively dream a parade compartment.

Crowdfunding Campaign

09 September–08 December 2023

Join Our Crowdfunding Campaign: Support Freefilmers!

The project To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023) and the project To Watch the War, In Solidarity are accompanied by a crowdfunding campaign in support of Freefilmers—some of its members are artists and activist filmmakers included in the exhibition and public program.

Panel Discussion

30 September 2023, 16.30-18.30

To the Other Side of the Concrete Wall

A book launch and panel discussion reflecting on the Jina Uprising, one year after its beginning.

Saturday, 30 September, 2023, 16:30–18:30 hrs at BAK, basis actuele kunst, Utrecht Organized by Jina Collective, a Netherlands-based feminist, leftist, anti-capitalist, anti-sexist, and pro-LQBTQIA+ action group that emerged from the Jina Uprising. This event launches a book of translated essays, co-published with BAK, which include some of the first English translations of texts by journalists […]

Public Program

09 September–29 October 2023

To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023)/Public Program

To Watch the War: The Moving Image Amidst the Invasion of Ukraine (2014–2023) involves a hybrid off- and online sequence of conversations and screenings around discursive and artistic interventions that reimagine the social implications of watching the war through ways that disrupt, subvert, resist the media’s incessant spectacularization of war.